Listening Booth: The Punch Brothers and More

By John Donohue

Otis Taylor, a blues singer, guitarist, and banjo player who was born in Chicago and raised in Denver, started in music in the late sixties and seventies, and then gave it up for a while to become an antiques dealer. He came roaring back with ten albums in the last ten years, though, and his new one, “Otis Taylor’s Contraband,” is full of sharply rendered songs about a wide range of subjects, including the Jim Crow era, slavery, and romance. Listen to “Never Been to Africa.”